Friday, November 13, 2015
Theatres can't keep asking us to hang about in the dark while actors move house. We may as well go to the cinemaAll performers hope for applause – but the new London West End production of…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:28AMThursday, November 12, 2015
From Gypsy to Harlequinade and The Moderate Soprano, London’s theatres are awash with shows about showbiz. Are they a valid celebration of the power of art, or just for self-indulgent luvv…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:13AMFriday, November 6, 2015
Chancellor Caryl Churchill, foreign secretary Gore Vidal, defence minister David Greig … Ahead of the National Theatre’s revival of Harley Granville Barker’s explosive play, Waste, Mar…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:44AMTuesday, November 3, 2015
New projects at the National Theatre and Chichester Festival theatre substantially rework the material of two great authors, raising questions of fidelity and freedomIf there is an afterlife…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:48AMTuesday, October 27, 2015
Measure for Measure has been staged three times in London this year. It goes to show just how resonant its themes of sexual licentiousness and twisted democracy are today – especially in R…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:36AMFriday, October 16, 2015
Lifetime achievement in music theatre acknowledges Lansbury’s prolific career in theatre and film spanning seven decadesPeople like to pass landmark birthdays in meaningful places, so it s…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:16AMFriday, October 9, 2015
Macbeth, starring Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard, joins Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet and Orson Welles’s Chimes at Midnight in my top 10 films based on the Stratford playwright’s w…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:13AMMonday, October 5, 2015
The jokes were dated and non-PC, the delivery perfectly timed: for one night only, the showbiz survivors teamed up to create a piece of theatre historyWith the two performers having a combin…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:50PMWednesday, September 23, 2015
The secretive immersive-theatre sensation is back for another sellout run. It’s an uplifting and unsettling experience – think Disneyland meets DismalandAt the curtain call for Agatha Ch…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:37PMFriday, September 18, 2015
Tipping the Velvet has opened to less fanfare than her Benedict Cumberbatch production, but Turner seems to prefer it that wayThe last time the theatre director Lyndsey Turner opened a produ…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:18PMThursday, September 17, 2015
Doctor Foster, Suffragette, Game, Splendour … hits keep on coming for Abi Morgan and Mike Bartlett. The success of these British playwrights comes from transcending the limits of both stag…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:30PMTuesday, August 18, 2015
A Desert Island Discs spoof, brooding circus performers who strip naked and a Yoko Ono-inspired love-fest … our critics choose their hot tickets at this year’s fringeO No!In less skilled…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:49AMFriday, August 14, 2015
Last year, with the referendum imminent, playwrights turned their hand to the subject of Scottish independence. This year the big issue is IsisIn Scotland, Labour has largely been replaced b…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:37AMThursday, August 13, 2015
Edinburgh festival has a long tradition of taking on leaders and legislation as dramatic subject matter and this year sees performers’ satire as sharp as everWho is the odd one out among T…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:09PMWednesday, August 12, 2015
Gilded Balloon, EdinburghHenry Naylor’s impressive work tells the story of a modern-day British jihadi bride in Syria and a Victorian bluestocking in Afghanistan – and manages to conjure…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:00AMTuesday, August 11, 2015
Gilded BalloonAn amoral anti-love story about the sexual abuse of a Spanish immigrant in Scotland is challenging, and begs the question: what shall we as viewers do?The title will make Anglo…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:28PMSunday, August 9, 2015
Pleasance Dome, EdinburghBizarre miscasting and stodgy dialogue scupper this account of a meeting between the master illusionist and the Sherlock Holmes creatorIn the teeming marketplace of …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:45AMAssembly George Square Studios, EdinburghJim Cartwright’s raucous, lively study of living for the weekend has the feel of another crossover work from the author of the Rise and Fall of Lit…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:31AMSaturday, August 8, 2015
Underbelly Potterow, EdinburghMargaret Ann Bain sculpts her body and voice to become a cast of dozens in this story of an East German woman forced to take over her dead husband’s identity …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:52AMFriday, July 24, 2015
From radical reinventions of the proscenium arch, to productions that march outside of the theatre altogether, the boards of the British stage are dissolving under a wave of innovationFootba…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:33AMFriday, July 10, 2015
Actor defied early rejections from drama schools to become one of Britain’s most exciting stage names, winning plaudits for her roles as well as her personalityIt is a mark of the boldness…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:12PMThursday, July 2, 2015
The Oresteia starts with a child sacrifice – and then gets darker. But it managed to cheer me up even more than the tremendously funny Rules for LivingDoes theatre, as the Greeks believed,…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:26PMFriday, June 19, 2015
After a painful failure with Spider-Man, Taymor has bounced back with stage and now film versions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Here she talks about why there are still few female director…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:56PMThursday, June 18, 2015
Patrick Marber has scored a hit with The Red Lion at the National Theatre. Here’s a first XI of stage dramas inspired by the beautiful gameAlthough football is England’s most popular tea…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:38AMMonday, June 8, 2015
New York’s theatre community put aside tribal loyalties to crown British stars Helen Mirren, Richard McCabe and Alex Sharp at this year’s Tonys• Alex Sharp and Helen Mirren head roll-c…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:02PMFriday, June 5, 2015
A Streetcar Named Desire is one of several landmark works that failed to win best play at past Tonys ceremonies. Which other classics have been snubbed at prizegivings?A remarkable 34 of the…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:18AMThursday, May 28, 2015
Both the National and Bush theatres are putting on plays with sweary titles this year. But how will they promote them? And what should journalists call them? Continue reading...
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:25AMMonday, May 18, 2015
Minerva, ChichesterJeremy Sams directs his own vivacious translation of Jean Anouilh’s smart comedy Continue reading...
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:07AMTuesday, April 28, 2015
The UK has become an experimental studio for risk-averse Broadway – but that shouldn’t detract from the great British talent nominated for this year’s Tonys Continue reading...
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:41PMSunday, April 26, 2015
Damian Lewis and John Goodman, in American Buffalo, are the latest Hollywood stars to tread London’s boards, in a deal that benefits both theatre and film Continue reading...
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:03PMThursday, April 23, 2015
Recent announcements at the National, the Garrick and the Old Vic show that casting the management is as important as contracting the actors In theatre companies, as in all organisations, a …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:09AM 
